The demands for ever-increasing bandwidths in digital data communication equipment at reduced power consumption levels are constantly growing. These demands not only require more efficient integrated-circuit components, but also high performance interconnect structures and devices. Indeed, as one example, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) projects that high performance chips in the very near future will have operating frequencies, both on-chip and off-chip, rising above 50 GHz. Conventional metal-wire based interconnects have played a central role in the microelectronics revolution. It is apparent that wire-based interconnect devices will be challenged to enabling even higher operating frequencies.
However, besides challenges with regard to bandwidth, the wire-based interconnect of the future may struggle significantly with a high power consumption. The power requirement of electronic components typically increase with increased bandwidth, which in some case result in increased cooling requirement which further increases power consumption of the electronic system as a whole. The power and cooling requirement may be particularly challenging to meet in data centers where larger quantities of servers are pooled and closely spaced. Such pooling inherently requires large quantities of interconnects which therefore may add significantly to the power and cooling requirements of the datacenter.
One approach to solve this problem includes utilizing optical interconnects as an alternative to wire-based interconnections as optical fibers have a significantly higher bandwidth relative to an electrical wire. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide means for reducing the power requirement of an optical interconnect.